Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Publishers Lunch

Publisher of Tarcher Perigee since 1996 Joel Fotinos has
decided to leave the company. (He also founded the Putnam Praise publishing
program in 2006.) Penguin Publishing Group president Madeline McIntosh writes
to staff: "From his early days at Tarcher and throughout his career here,
he has always been focused on publishing books that strive to make the world a
better place, and as much as we will miss him, I know you will join me in
supporting his decision to take that mission beyond our walls." Avery
publisher Megan Newman
will become publisher for Avery and Tarcher Perigee, though the imprints will
remain "independent editorial entities."

At Gallery Books, Meagan Harris has been promoted to assistant director
of publicity and Theresa Dooley has been promoted to Publicist.

At Macmillan Children's, Mary
Van Akin has been promoted to associate director of publicity; Morgan Dubin has
been promoted to publicity manager; and Brittany
Pearlman has been promoted to publicist.

Naoise McGee
has joined AGI Vigliano as foreign rights consultant. She was most recently
subsidiary rights associate at Farrar, Straus.

Saba Sulaiman
has been promoted to associate agent at Talcott Notch Literary Services.

Michael Pickrum
will join Cengage as evp, chief financial officer on November 20. Most recently
he was chief strategy officer of edtech company EVERFI, prior to which he was
cfo and evp of business development and strategy at BET Networks.

Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Brian
Fies is among those who lost his home in the California
wildfires. He created
and posted a comic about his experiences.

Forthcoming
Senator John McCain
signed with longtime editor Jonathan Karp at Simon & Schuster in February
for another memoir, prior to his brain cancer diagnosis in July. The publisher
has announced THE
RESTLESS WAVE: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations
for publication in April 2018. McCain is working with longtime collaborator Mark
Salter, and the book promises his "no-holds-barred opinions" on the
recent presidential election and the current climate in Washington, DC. Karp tells
the AP, "This memoir will be about what matters most to him, and I hope it
will be regarded as the work of an American hero." Apparently, the
original working title was It's Always Darkest Before It's Totally Black, which
Salter says "was an old joke he employed often over the years. But the
Senator thought it was too flip for some of the subjects he now wants to
address." Salter says they are "still a ways to go" before finishing
the manuscript, but McCain is "hard at it."

DistributionSimon & Schuster has expanded their distribution relationship with
Readerlink's Printers
Row Publishing Group. In addition to the Studio Fun line, they
will take on book trade distribution for the Silver Dolphin Books, Thunder Bay
Press, Canterbury Classics, and Portable Press imprints, starting January 1, 2018
in Canada and May
1 in the US.BooksellingSan Francisco store Borderlands,
which almost closed two and a half years ago, has made an offer on a new building
and launched a campaign
to raise the $1.9 million they need through customer loans.

Ithaca's Buffalo
Street Books will stay
open after raising $50,000 in donations. The store has outstanding bills
totaling $100,00 and will "seek to raise more money, fast" to keep
operating.